She was halfway through the main course when Luca appeared.
'Santo cielo...how can you eat at a time like this?' he breathed in a charged tone of incredulity.
'I felt hungry...sorry to be so prosaic,' Darcy muttered, wondering where that rather melodramatic opening was about to take him.
'How's Ilaria?'
'I persuaded her to stay the night. I'm sorry about that...'
'About what?' Conscious that the sight of the cutlery still in her grasp seemed to be an offence of no mean order in his eyes, she abandoned her meal. In fact, in the mix of shadow and dim light in which Luca stood poised, the dark, sombre planes of his unusually pale features lent him an almost lost, lonely sort of aspect.
'About what?' Luca echoed, frowning as if he was strug¬gling to get a grip on himself. 'Aren't you furious with Ilaria?'
'Gosh, no...she was terribly distressed. She's rather young for her age—very...well, emotional,' Darcy se¬lected, striving to be tactful for once in her life.
'Being emotional is not catching...is it? You must be outraged with me,' Luca breathed starkly.
'Well, yes, I was when all this nonsense started—'
'Nonsense?' Luca cut in with ragged stress.
Darcy rose to her feet, wishing she could just run over and put her arms round him, spring him out of this strange and unfamiliar mood he was in, but he looked so incredibly remote now. As if he had lost everything he possessed. But he would strangle the first person who had the bad taste to either mention it or show a single hint of pity or under¬standing.
'I always knew I didn't take the wretched thing,' she pointed out gently. 'I'm awfully glad it's all cleared up now. And I understand why you were so convinced I was the thief...after all, you didn't know me, did you?'
Luca flinched as if she had punched him in the stomach. He spun his dark head away. 'No...I didn't,' he framed almost hoarsely.
She watched him swallow convulsively.
Feeling utterly helpless, craving the confidence to bridge the frightening gap she could feel opening up between them, Darcy was gripped by a powerful wave of frustration. He was so at a loss; she wanted to hug him the way she hugged Zia when she fell over and hurt herself. But she thought she would crack their tenuous relationship right down the middle if she made such an approach. He was too proud.
'We'll talk later,' Luca imparted with what sounded like collected self. 'You need to be alone for a while,'
He needed to be alone for a while, Darcy interpreted without difficulty. He's going to walk out on me,..what did I do wrong? a voice screamed inside her bemused head. Here she was, being as fair, honest and reasonable as she knew how to be, and the wretched man was withdrawing more from her with every second.
Tell me...would you have preferred a screaming row?'
'We have nothing to row about any more,' Luca coun¬tered, without a shade of his usual irony. In fact he sounded as if his only enjoyment in life had been wrenched from him by the cruellest of fates.
As the clock on the mantelpiece struck midnight, Darcy rose with a sigh. And that was when she heard the sound of footsteps in the hall. As the drawing room door opened, she tensed. For a split second Luca stilled at the sight of her, veiled eyes astutely reading the anxious, assessing look in hers.
'Would you like a drink?' he murmured quietly as he thrust the door closed.
'A brandy..." She watched him stride over to the ornate oriental drinks cabinet. Lithe, dark, strikingly good-looking, every movement fluid as poetry. He didn't look gutted any more—but then she hadn't expected him to. Luca was tough, a survivor, and survivors knew how to roll with the punches.
But she must have been born under an unlucky star. What savage fate had decreed that she should be involved up to her throat in the two biggest mistakes Luca had ever made? It was so cruel. He would judge himself harshly and he would never think of her without guilty unease again. She was like an albatross in his life, always a portent of doom. She hoved in to his radius and things went badly wrong. If he was like every other man she had ever known, he would very soon find the very sight of her an objection¬able reminder of his own lowest moments.
Luca handed her the balloon glass of brandy, his lean, strong face sombre. 'I have come to some conclusions.'
Menaced by both expression and announcement, Darcy downed the brandy in one long, desperate gulp.
'You must have found the last few days very traumatic,' Luca breathed heavily, fabulous bone structure rigid. 'In retrospect, it is impossible to justify anything that I have done. I can make no excuse for myself; I can only admit that from the instant I found you gone from the apartment, the safe open, the Adorata gone, I nourished an obsessive need to run you to ground and even what I saw as the score between us—'
Predictably, Darcy cut to the heart of the matter. 'You thought I'd made a fool of you.'